The present invention relates to a marking medium area that has markings encoding an identifier for producing action through a network.
It is well known to link electronic documents by setting up hyperlinks between documents in HTML format stored at, and transferable between, computers forming nodes of a conventional computer network, e.g. the Internet or an intranet. See Berners-Lee, T. J., Cailliau, R., and Groff, J.-F., The Worldwide Web, Computer Networks and ISDN Systems 25, North-Holland, 1992, pp. 454-459.
Sxc3x6dergxc3xa1rd, C., Juhola, H., Bxc3xa4ckstrxc3x6m, C., and Vainikainen, I., xe2x80x9cA Pen Scanner Based System For An Easy Access to Relevant WWW Hyperlinksxe2x80x9d, in Proceedings of TAGA ""97 Conference, Quebec, CA, 4-7 May 1997, Technical Association for Graphic Arts, 1997, describe a system in which a pen scanner enters printed anchor words linked to uniform resource locator (URL) addresses. The scanned text is processed with optical character recognition (OCR), and the OCR result is processed in an interpretation module to select a correct link anchor from a locally stored link list that has been downloaded from the publisher""s World Wide Web (WWW) server. After selecting the link anchor, the corresponding URL addresses are determined from the link list and the WWW pages are retrieved with an Internet browser and displayed on a monitor.
Robinson, P., Sheppard, D., Watts, R., Harding, R., and Lay, S., xe2x80x9cA framework for interacting with paperxe2x80x9d, EUROGRAPHICS ""97, Vol. 16, No. 3, 1997, pp. C-329 to C-334, describe a framework for preparation and presentation of mixed-media documents using a registry that associates physical locations on pieces of paper with actions. A DigitalDesk, which has a video camera mounted above a desk to detect where a user is pointing and to read documents on the desk and a projector mounted above the desk to project objects onto the work surface and paper documents, is used to identify pieces of paper and animate them by placing them on the DigitalDesk. The camera identifies the document and follows the pointer, and associated actions are identified in the registry and invoked as appropriate with the results being projected back onto the paper. To identify a document, a page is marked with a unique OCR font identifier that encodes the location of the directory as a network IP address and an index for the document within the directory. A document can be printed from the registry, with its unique identifier; a printed document""s page representation is retained in the registry as an immutable copy of its structure. Paper access to the World Wide Web is possible. Given a URL, information on the associated web page can be captured in the registry, the page can be printed, and links can be activated by placing the paper on a DigitalDesk and pointing. The page""s identifier and the coordinates of the link are looked up in the registry to yield the appropriate activity, and the results are projected back onto the desk.
Johnson, W., Jellinek, H., Klotz, L., Rao, R., and Card, S., xe2x80x9cBridging the Paper and Electronic Worlds: The Paper User Interfacexe2x80x9d, INTERCHI ""93 Conference Proceedings, ACM, 1993, pp. 507-512, describe techniques in which documents can contain, in addition to the human-readable information (e.g. text), printed machine-readable encoded data. The document can, for example, be a form and the encoded data can be a form identifier. A prototype system can receive a faxed form and decode the form identifier, locate an appropriate action description file, process the page image, and provide the information from the page image to the action procedure for the form. The system automatically creates a new form that points at a newly stored document, to give the user a way of accessing and interacting with it later, with checkboxes that allow the user to print or delete it.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,661,506 describes a pen and paper information recording system using an imaging pen. A writing paper has a writing surface and a prerecorded invisible pattern of pixels. Each pixel contains encoded, optically readable position information that identifies a coordinate position on the writing surface, and may also include a page number and a pad number. The system includes an imaging system for providing image signals representing images of pixels near the pen tip. A processor responds to the image signals and determines and electronically records positions of the pen tip on the writing surface as markings are made.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,486,686 describes machine readable electronic domain definitions of part or all of electronic domain descriptions of hardcopy documents and/or of part or all of the transforms that are performed to produce and reproduce such hardcopy documents, encoded in codes that are printed on the documents. The codes permit the electronic domain descriptions of the documents and/or the transforms to be recovered more robustly and reliably when the information carried by the documents is transformed from the hardcopy domain to the electronic domain. Encoded data embedded in the hardcopy document may include descriptions of the data points for structured graphics, descriptions of algorithms utilized for performing computations for spreadsheets, descriptions of hypertext pointer values, descriptions of structural characteristics of an electronic source document, descriptions of a document editor, descriptions of file name and storage location of an electronic source document, and descriptions of audit-trail data for an electronic source document.
The invention addresses problems in obtaining automatic actions through a network. It is often difficult to obtain an appropriate automatic action such as access to multimedia information or other information available through a network. This is especially true where the context includes a physical object such as a hardcopy document, and the action should be appropriate to the object.
The use of hyperlinks in electronic documents relies on conventional user interface techniquesxe2x80x94keying in and/or point and clickxe2x80x94with a networked computing device. Conventional user interface techniques require the user to divert attention away from the hardcopy document (e.g. a book) which he or she has been reading and require the user (a) to manually enter information (e.g. a WWW URL) needed to retrieve the related information and (b) if the user does not know beforehand and has not been informed in the hardcopy document where to access the related information, to perform some search in order to find the related information.
Conventional techniques that rely on encoded information on a document have heretofore been quite limited, typically providing only for a limited set of information of a limited type, such as printed documents, to be retrieved and viewed. Also, some such techniques require the user to stop reading the document, to mark it in an appropriate way, and then to feed it manually into a fax machine or scanner coupled to a networked computing device, in order for the desired function to be performed.
The techniques described by Sxc3x6dergxc3xa1rd et al. and Robinson et al. may lead to advances, but were developed with other objectives in mind and are not well-suited to efficiently obtaining an automatic action appropriate to a specific physical object. The Sxc3x6dergxc3xa1rd technique relies on OCR of any of a number of anchor words that appear in a book, and each anchor word is linked to a URL through a link list; but an anchor word appears to produce the same URL independent of the book in which it appears. The Robinson technique requires a complex sequence in which a Web page is retrieved, then printed, then pointed to on the DigitalDesk. In general, these and other conventional techniques do not provide automatic actions appropriate to physical objects through a network in a non-disruptive streamlined manner.
The invention provides techniques that alleviate these problems. The techniques employ action/medium identifiers encoded in machine-readable markings on marking media such as sheets or stickers of paper or documents. Each action/medium identifier identifies an action. The action/medium identifier can be used to obtain an action identifier that can be provided through a network to an action device to produce the action. The action device provides the identified action automatically in response to the action identifier. The action/medium identifier also identifies the marking medium. Because the action/medium identifier identifies both the marking medium and the appropriate automatic action, the marking medium can be used to obtain the appropriate automatic action in a non-disruptive streamlined manner. The user can obtain the automatic action in a way that does not disturb normal reading activity and does not disturb document appearance.
Some of the techniques provide articles of manufacture for obtaining automatic actions through a network using processing circuitry for connecting to the network and detection circuitry for providing input signals to the processing circuitry. An article can include an area of a marking medium and machine-readable markings within the area. The machine-readable markings can encode an action/medium identifier as described above. The machine-readable markings can be decodable to obtain the action/medium identifier by the processing circuitry using input signals that define machine-readable markings in the area of the marking medium.
The action/medium identifier can be implemented to include a globally unique identifier of the marking medium area, such as a globally unique page or sticker identifier. The detection device can be an image input device and the machine-readable markings can be invisible or can be visually nonobstructive markings.
If the area of the marking medium is a page, the action/medium identifier can include a page identifier, and the action device can include digital data defining a counterpart image of the page. The counterpart image can be isomorphic with the page. The action/medium identifier can also include a location identifier that identifies a location of a zone within the page, and the identified action can relate to the zone. The machine-readable markings that encode the page identifier can be in a different section of the zone than the markings that encode the location identifier. The zone can also include an orientation marking indicating orientation of the page.
If the area of the marking medium is part of a hardcopy document, the action/medium identifier can include a document identifier that identifies the hardcopy document. The action/medium identifier can also include the action identifier, though the machine-readable markings encoding the document identifier can be at a different position than the markings that encode the action identifier.
If the area of the marking medium is a sticker, the action/medium identifier can include a sticker identifier that identifies the sticker.
In each case, the action/medium identifier can also include an access control code derived from the medium identifier using a secret function, to prevent certain types of fraudulent uses of identifiers.
Other techniques provide methods of providing automatic actions through a network. A method can receive input signals from a detection device as described above. The method can use the input signals, decoding the machine-readable markings to obtain the action/medium identifier, can then use the action/medium identifier to obtain the action identifier, and can provide the action identifier through the network to the action device.
If the area of the marking medium is a page, the method can be implemented with an action device that includes digital data defining a counterpart image of the page as described above. Second input signals defining machine-readable markings in a second area, encoding a second action/medium identifier, can be received and decoded. The second action/medium identifier can identify the marking medium and a location within it. The second area can also include humanreadable markings identifying a link to a network address, and the action identified by the second action/medium identifier can follow the link.
The method can also be implemented to provide the action/medium identifier to a machine, such as a global or network-wide router, to obtain network addresses. One network address can be that of the action device, the other that of a peripheral device that is also connected to the network. The method can use the action device""s address to provide the action identifier and the peripheral device""s address to the action device. The action device can respond by performing the action to obtain output data and can then use the peripheral device""s address to provide the output data to the peripheral.
The method can also be implemented to determine whether the action identifier meets a valid request criterion before it provides the action. If the action identifier includes both a medium identifier and an access control code derived from the medium identifier using a secret code, the action device can determine whether the access control code was derived using the secret code.
Yet other techniques provide systems for providing automatic actions through a network. A system can include detection circuitry for providing input signals as described above, and processing circuitry for receiving input signals. The processing circuitry can use the input signals to decode the machine-readable markings to obtain the action/medium identifier, then use the action/medium identifier to obtain the action identifier. The processing circuitry can then provide the action identifier through the network to the action device, which provides the action automatically.
The system can be implemented with a pointer that includes the detection circuitry. The pointer can also include a user input device for providing user input signals, in response to which input signals are provided. The detection circuitry can be image input circuitry, the pointer can also include a marking element, and the processing circuitry can obtain, for a series of images, time data indicating the times at which the images occurred. The pointer can be a handheld device.
The techniques according to the invention are advantageous because they can be used to provide an automatic action appropriate to a physical object, such as a hardcopy document or an object to which a sticker is attached, in a non-disruptive streamlined manner.
In addition, the techniques according to the invention allow a rich variety of implementations. For example, in one implementation, the action/medium identifier can be encoded in invisible or visually nonobstructive machine-readable markings that are uniformly distributed on the marking medium; as a result, the detection circuitry can be in a pointer that can recover the action/medium identifier from any position on the page, and it is not necessary to provide the identifier in a text region, as would be the case for an action identifier that is a URL. Some implementations are advantageous because a handheld detection device can be used, increasing interactivity. In comparison with conventional techniques that rely on URLs, some implementations of the invention advantageously provide action/medium identifiers of sufficient density that they can identify any of an enormous number of actions and can allow worldwide or global access to remote information; URLs, on the other hand, require different words for different actions, which tends to limit the number of actions that can be addressed. Some implementations advantageously provide action/medium identifiers that can integrate in one encoded value a medium identifier, an action identifier, and an access control code. And some implementations allow a sheet of paper to act as a remote extension, analogous to an input peripheral, to a digital document repository, such as a collection of documents stored on a server connected to a network; the repository can be distributed as a result of the sheets acting as its extensions.
The techniques according to the invention could thus be implemented to provide worldwide hyperlinking of paper documents to electronic data, within a virtually unlimited address space, and in a way that produces little or no distortion of usual document appearances and minimal disturbance of normal reading activity.
The following description, the drawings, and the claims further set forth these and other aspects, objects, features, and advantages of the invention.